Balkans

Tuzla residents commemorated the anniversary of the Brcanska Malta battle in 1992, when 37 people died as local police in the north-eastern town fought the Yugoslav People’s Army.

Buildings and farmland have been flooded in Bosnia after heavy rain caused many rivers to overflow.

With 90 people still missing since the conflict and the abuse of wartime prisoners largely unpunished, victims’ families in the town of Hadzici say they’re losing hope of seeing justice.

After several towns were almost completely flooded on Thursday, the country’s presidency tasked the armed forces with helping to rescue people trapped in their homes.

After Bosnia’s parliament failed to agree on changes to the electoral law for Mostar, it appears that the city will again miss out on local elections due in October.

A witness told the war crimes trial of Bosnian Serb ex-soldier Vitomir Rackovic that her sister said that she and others were raped by Serb fighters in the Visegrad area in 1992.

The defence for former Bosnian Army soldier Edin Dzeko, charged with wartime crimes against Croats, said that testimony about alleged assault and extortion was based on a mistaken identity.

Bosnian justice minister Barisa Colak admitted that the country had not gone far enough to meet its goals in prosecuting people suspected of crimes committed during the 1992-95 conflict.

Trpe Stojanovski, director of the Migration, Asylum, Refugees Regional Initiative, tells Balkan Insight that Balkan countries cannot deal with rapidly rising migrant numbers from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

The High Representative has raised the issue of residence checks in Republika Srpska in a meeting in Washington, while the Bosnian Croat Presidency member said the new rules had been rushed through ahead of the general election.